Day and night

Day and night are two environment states which affect certain gameplay mechanics, including the appearances of certain weapons and sylvari glow.

In most areas of the game, day and night alternate according to the day-night cycle. Any zone or instance that does not follow the cycle will be permanently frozen in either the day state or the night state. The day-night mechanic is intended as an element of realism in the game; for example, the day-night cycle mimics the passage of real time, and the night state of many underground dungeons reflects the darker feeling of those locations.

A single day-night cycle lasts for 2 hours. It is broken into four stages: day (70 minutes), dusk (5 minutes), night (40 minutes), and dawn (5 minutes).

For the purposes of mechanics that can't transition smoothly between day and night behaviors, dawn is usually considered night and dusk is considered day. Food is a notable exception; it will treat dawn as day and dusk as night.

In Hoelbrak, a giant warhorn will resonate through the whole stead slowly playing the first notes of The Saga of the Norn. The warhorn can also be heard from outside Hoelbrak when standing close to the entrance in Wayfarer Foothills.

In Rata Sum, the golems through the city will play a morning alarm to the tune of Snaff's Workshop and say "Good morning" three times.

In The Grove, the flowers and reeds hanging from a twisting branch at Upper Commons will act as wind chimes to play a fragment of Fear Not This Night.

The two hungry kittens in The Grove will only accept food during certain times of day. The black kitten will accept food during the day (not dusk), and the white kitten will accept food at night (not dawn).

Sylvari will glow when in the night state. This glow appears gradually during dusk, and disappears gradually during dawn. For playable characters, the color and intensity of the glow is set during character creation.